Introjection

This psychoanalytic concept was coined by Sandor Ferenczi in his
paper “Introjection and Transference” (1909) as the antithesis to
“projection”. He defined it as taking into the ego parts of the
outside world and making them the object of unconscious phantasies.
Freud developed Ferenczi's idea, notably in his essay “Instincts
and their Vicissitudes” (1915) and in “Mourning and Melancholia”
(1917), as a contrasting dyad with his earlier term projection
(first used in 1896), such that introjection becomes the process of
taking into ourselves that which is associated with pleasure,
whilst projection is a defensive mechanism for ejecting from
ourselves …

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